The Problematic Henchman
by Warner Hedgehog
Summary: In Neighbours there was a criminal type called Dennis Dimato. Early in his dodgy career he visited the ol' USA. His location he chose poorly. This has now been vaguely expanded to include some actual dialogue for young Dennis.


**May 7th**

It was a quiet spring day in Gotham and a large container ship called _The Moonfleet_ had just arrived from Australia. Most of the cargo was entirely legitimate things such as bush hats, vegemite, coats and the like. Some of the things on board were a bit less legal, this included one boxful of guns, a crate stuffed with cocaine and a few undocumented workers. One such person was was a young hothead from Darwin by the name of Dennis Dimato. Dennis wanted to make it big in the US and after minimal research he had chosen Gotham as his starting place. His contact was a shady (and slightly yellow complexioned) individual known as Barry the Mango, who was waiting by his knackered looking sedan. Dennis went to shake hands, "Right mate? You must be Barry. I'm Dennis."

"Good to meet you Dennis, call me Mango. So you've come to make it in America then? Well have I got an opportunity for you if you're willing to get your hands dirty." Barry walked round to the driver's side and got in.

"I got no problem with that." Dimato replied as he got in the passenger side.

"Glad to hear it. Welcome to Gotham City, a place where dreams come true: as long as your dreams involve a winter that lasts forever and costumed weirdoes running around the skyline. You're gonna love it here."

"I've not heard much about the boss, what's he like?" Dennis asked.

"Mr Penguin? He's a bit odd but you'll get used to him. He's a fairly straight talking kinda guy and as long as you do your job right and don't cross him then he's pretty cool to work for. He's certainly better than that psycho freak Joker or that coin tossing nut Two Face."

Dennis pondered the names Joker and Two-Face for a moment before replying, "I guess there's a lot to learn here."

"Yeah, but you'll get used to it pretty fast. Right, first we'll go to your apartment. We've sorted you a place near the Church, then we'll go see your team leader: you'll like Mikey. We call him the Spanner cause he's always repairing things. Not very well, but he tries."

 **September 14th**

A group of roughly-dressed henchmen were setting up a warehouse in the industrial district. The warehouse was under the ownership of a mysterious gentleman called Cornelius Bunting, an oddly non-existent person who was merely an identity to disguise the Penguin's business dealings. Dave Plumbs was Cobblepot's enforcer and the man in charge of the operation, and Dave didn't take any messing about or sloppiness in his squad. He was currently in the foreman's office having a serious discussion with Mikey the Spanner. The team leader was voicing his concerns about a junior member of the group.

The newbie in question was young Dennis.

"The lad's too distracted, that's the problem. Petty mindless vindictive stuff just keeps grabbing his attention." moaned Mikey.

Dave raised an eyebrow, "Example?"

"There's this guy in his apartment block, and young Dennis keeps harping on about little things the guy does that annoy him. Then there's the guy that runs the Irish bar over in Burnley, you know, the guy with the squinty eye. Kid keeps trying to get money out of the guy using any little blackmail and extortion method he can think of."

"That it?" Dave was unimpressed so far.

"Whenever he sees someone he thinks is beneath him in any way, he always and I mean every time, he has to go and hassle them, you know: gives 'em lots of verbal and all sorts of school kid stuff. It's worse if he actually knows 'em."

"So what you're saying is, Dennis is an obsessive and petty little weirdo who might let small and unimportant things get the better of him and thus hinder our operations in the future: Is that the basic gist?" Dave did a lazy spin in his chair.

Mikey nodded slowly, "Yeah, that's a pretty fair description."

"Right. Now I know I'll pay more attention to him now. Cheers Spanner." Dave stood up and shook Mikey's hand. As Mikey left the room, Dave walked to the window. It afforded the foreman a good view over the entire warehouse floor, allowing Dave to see all his workers in action. After a little while he managed to pick Dimato out. "There you are Tomato." He said to himself, "I'm watching you _very_ carefully."

 **September 23rd**

On the roof of the warehouse, peeking through a skylight crouched a rather familiar gentleman dressed in black. Below him a scene was unfolding: A crowd of baying henchmen stood in a large-ish circle, centred around a young man tied to a chair, "What is that deranged Penguin up to? This looks like an execution." muttered the Bat to himself. His only company on the roof was a pair of goons who were both too unconscious to talk.

Down on the floor Cobblepot was pacing about, gesticulating with his umbrella. "Dennis, Dennis, Dennis. What are we going to do with you?" he glared at the bound-up Dimato, "It was your sodding job to guard the poxing door. Not too much to ask was it?" He turned to his enforcer, "Dave, you're in charge here ain't ya? Please tell everyone how young Tomato here screwed up all their hard work."

Dave stepped forward, "Two nights ago, we had received a large shipment of heroin and Dennis here was supposed to be guarding the door. He had promised me hand on heart that he would focus on the job in hand and that he wouldn't let me down. Unfortunately he was distracted by an opportunity to intimidate a passer by and thus allowed two employees of one of our competitors to get in and grab some of our merchandise and they have probably informed their boss about this set-up."

There were murmurs of disapproval throughout the group: they didn't like to see their hard work ruined by one single fool.

"Thank you Dave. I could shoot you right now _Dennis,_ but I don't think that's fair on the boys here: they worked so hard to sort out that stuff and put their little hearts and souls into it, I feel they deserve a little...retribution." Penguin turned to the crowd, "So what I propose is that each man here gets to punch you good and hard. Once only though and no weapons." He paused and looked deliberately at one henchman, "That includes dusters: we want this to be fair after all. After they're done and you're still alive, then I'll shoot you. And since Dave here was in charge, he gets the first go. Form an orderly queue lads, and no queue jumping. Ha ha ha!"

By this point in the meeting, Batman had snuck into the warehouse via the roof and had incapacitated the two thugs who were patrolling the upper gangways, as well as the hapless guy in the Foreman's office. He was about to leap down to sow violence and confusion when a gang of armed maniacs led by Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent burst in. "Whatever you're doing, stop it!" Dent screamed, "Anyone moves, they're dead!"

In the privacy of his head, Bruce Wayne thought "OK. Change of plan. Two rival gangs, lots of armed thugs on edge. This could get dangerous. What to do?"

Carefully he set himself up to pluck the henchman from the crossfire: Anyone who the Penguin wanted dead had to be worth talking to. He pulled out a smoke pellet and readied himself. He threw the pellet right next to the chair bound man and leapt into the smoke. Without wasting time he grabbed Dimato and grappled back up, letting the smoke cause maximum confusion amongst the crowd of crims.

While the warehouse floor sprawled with chaos, Batman and his detainee left via a skylight so they could have a 'conversation' in peace.

Lifting the young thug up easily and giving him a good shake was enough to scare Dimato into telling all. Bruce learned of the heroin and of Dimato's tendency toward petty grievances. He learned of several other of Cobblepot's operations dotted around Gotham and of the recent dealings between Penguin and Two-Face. He left Dennis unconscious of the warehouse roof while he went to deal with whatever scum were left in the building below.

A short while later, the Australian henchman came round and as he worked out how to get down he came to the conclusion that Gotham wasn't the best place to start a criminal career but it was the best place to get killed by one of the very many supervillain status gangbangers or their trigger-happy henchmen that resided there. The best plan was to go back to Australia and start afresh, using what he'd learned here. The next week saw him on a ship bound for Perth. Maybe he'd try his luck in Melbourne or something. Someplace Batman or anyone like him definitely wasn't.


End file.
